“I think you’re much better than I, and I know very few people so good as you,” Lady Aurora brought out, blushing not for her opinions but for her timidity. It was easy to see that though she was original she would have liked to be even more original than she was. She was conscious, however, that such a declaration might appear rather gross to persons who didn’t see exactly how she meant it; so she added, as quickly as her hesitating manner permitted, to cover it up: “You know there’s one thing you ought to remember, _à propos_ of revolutions and changes and all that sort of thing; I just mention it because we were talking of some of the dreadful things that were done in France. If there were to be a great disturbance in this country—and of course one hopes there won’t—it would be my impression that the people would behave in a different way altogether.” “What people do you mean?” Hyacinth allowed himself to inquire. “Oh, the upper class, the people who’ve got all the things.” “We don’t call them the _people_,” observed Hyacinth, reflecting the next instant that his remark was a little primitive. “I suppose you call them the wretches, the scoundrels!” Rose Muniment suggested, laughing merrily. “All the things, but not all the brains,” her brother said. “No indeed, aren’t they stupid?” exclaimed her ladyship. “All the same, I don’t think they’d all go abroad.” “Go abroad?” “I mean like the French nobles who emigrated so much. They’d stay at home and resist; they’d make more of a fight. I think they’d fight very hard.” “I’m delighted to hear it, and I’m sure they’d win!” cried Rosy. “They wouldn’t collapse, don’t you know,” Lady Aurora continued. “They’d struggle till they were beaten.” “And you think they’d be beaten in the end?” Hyacinth asked. “Oh dear, yes,” she replied with a familiar confidence at which he was greatly surprised. “But of course one hopes it won’t happen.” “I infer from what you say that they talk it over a good deal among themselves, to settle the line they’ll take,” said Paul Muniment.